Albert Schweitzer Compassion Quotations

We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it. Until we extend our circle of compassion to all living things, humanity will not find peace.

Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.

I can do no other than be reverent before everything that is called life. I can do no other than to have compassion for all that is called life. That is the beginning and the foundation of all ethics.

If there is anything I have learned about men and women, it is that there is a deeper spirit of altruism than is ever evident. Just as the rivers we see are minor compared to the underground streams, so, too, the idealism that is visible is minor compared to what people carry in their hearts unreleased or scarcely released.

Ethics cannot be based upon our obligations toward people, but they are complete and natural only when we feel this Reverence for Life and the desire to have compassion for and to help all creatures insofar as it is in our power. I think that this ethic will become more and more recognized because of its great naturalness and because it is the foundation of a true humanism toward which we must strive if our culture is to become truly ethical.

Constant Kindness can accomplish much.

We need a boundless ethic, one which will include the animals, too. Until we extend the circle of his compassions to all living things, we will not find peace.

The purpose of human life is to serve and to show compassion and the will to help others.

For animals that are overworked, underfed, and cruelly treated; for all wistful creatures in captivity that beat their wings against bars; for any that are hunted or lost or deserted or frightened or hungry; for all that must be put to death...and for those who deal with them we ask a heart of compassion and gentle hands and kindly words.

All people are endowed with the faculty of compassion, and for this reason can develop the humanitarian spirit.

If the extension of your compassion does not include all living beings, then you will be unable to find peace by yourself.

Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace. - The Philosophy of Civilization.

The human spirit is not dead. It lives on in secret... It has come to believed that compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.-